1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a reproducing apparatus and, more particularly, to processing of image data when the image data is reproduced at a high rate.
2. Related Background Art
This type of apparatuses for recording moving image data in a digital form on a recording medium such as a tape or a disk are known.
In recent years, particularly, significant progress has been made in increasing the storage capacity of disk mediums, and apparatuses have been proposed which perform long-time recording and reproducing of video signals as well as audio signals on and from a disk medium. For example, techniques using recording formats based on high-efficiency coding systems proposed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), etc., are being studied to realize a picture recording/reproducing apparatus for one hour or longer at a data rate of about 4 to 10 Mbps. Further, there is also a positive trend in the development of disk mediums per se toward smaller disk mediums having larger capacities. The development of apparatuses capable of recording and reproduction at higher densities is being advanced.
In apparatuses for performing recording and reproduction on and from a disk medium, a search (special reproduction) may also be performed for the purpose of identifying the contents of a recording on the recording medium, as in conventional video tape recorders. To search moving image data recorded on a disk medium, the data is reproduced by determining an amount of feed of tracks on the recording medium according to a set reproduction speed (set by a user, for example) and the user checks reproduced images through a television monitor, an liquid crystal display monitor, or the like. The reproduction speed during search reproduction is determined by this track feed amount.
Such a search reproduction function conceived in the conventional art, however, is to update displayed images on frame basis at time intervals according to its reproduction speed and therefore entails a drawback in that the movements of the search reproduction images are intermittent and lack smoothness when a scene is changed and when a scene has large movement. Thus, there has been the problem in that checking of image contents during search reproduction requires a great deal of user's continuous attention to displayed images changing rapidly on a frame basis, and that images reproduced to be checked is of considerably inferior quality because of their lack of smoothness in motion and their discontinuous and fragmentary condition.